Be Careful What You Wish For
by anonyreaderfan
Summary: John opens his mind and gives Cara access to his memories in Superhero. So what did Cara think about them?


Disclaimer: The Tomorrow People is the property of the CW. No copyright infringement is intended.

~ X ~

I wrote this in a response to a challenge from by7the7sea.

"My request/challenge is a scene where John either lets Cara in or she somehow gets a glimpse of what he's been through with Ultra and his complicated relationship with Jed. In my mind, it should be a "be careful what you wish for" scenario. Now I know the show just gave us a scene, but it was a bit lacking (at least for me) in Cara's reaction."

I've never responded to a challenge before (performance anxiety – LOL) but I had been thinking the same thing, i.e. Cara's response was ah . . like nothing.

I hope another writer will also pick up the challenge. I would love to see how someone else imagines this.

~ X ~

Italics with quotes = telepathic conversation

Italics without quotes = thoughts

~ X ~

Stephen teleported out seeking the butcher shop Cara had pulled from John's memories.

John, still stretched out on the sofa, reached for her hand.

She looked down at him for a moment, concerned. "Are you alright?"

He smiled. "No more secrets."

Cara kept her face expressionless, but she reeled from the onslaught of memories. She had expected John to relax and let down his guard, allowing her to gently finger through his memories like flipping through photos on a tablet. And it had worked. She recovered the memory that they were looking for and spoke it out loud for Stephen's benefit, but then John had surprised her. He had force fed her his memories, shoving them into the maw that was her brain; his determination to hold nothing back battering her unmercifully. She was caught off guard, unprepared to defend herself against this mental assault.

She blocked her thoughts now, imagining steel doors slamming shut so tight not even an air molecule could slip through. She could not allow these memories to leak to anyone else. Could not let him feel how upset she was. She excused herself from his presence, telling him to rest on the sofa. She blindly moved out of the room bouncing off a table in her haste. She winced from the impact knowing it would leave a bruise.

She had to get away––to deal with the images swirling through her mind. She had to fight the dark shadows threatening to pull her down into a deep black cesspool of emotion.

She pushed unseeing through the large common area tripping on the steps. Someone reached out a hand to help her, but she impatiently waved them away.

She strode now, heels clacking on the cement floor, out to the furthest reaches of their underground home. Her pace gradually increased until she was running to reach a hidden set of stairs John had discovered and shared with her. She climbed up finding the round manhole leading to an abandoned tunnel. She stooped to enter and then ran her hands along the wall until she found a ladder, no more than a series of rungs. Her heel slipped on the greasy metal bar, but she recovered her footing and continued up. At the top she turned left and found another manhole. Soon she was in an area lit only by red bulbs, encased in wire cages, creating small pools of eerie light.

She perched on a narrow ledge, and only then when she stopped did she hear her own harsh noisy panting. She made an effort to control her breathing. She had finally seen what he had refused to reveal to her. What she insisted that he share. At last she understood why he kept his memories to himself.

Suddenly, without warning, she vomited. Bitter bile filled her mouth, and she spat to get rid of it. The taste lingered, and she hawked phlegm needing to rid herself of the acid taste. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand wishing she could vomit out the thoughts she had been made privy to. Wished she could scrub out the images she had seen.

No one had the right to manipulate another human being like that, let alone a child. She tried to take control of the memories, sift through them gradually to make them less overwhelming.

There were no good memories from the foster homes. That piece of crap in the last home sold John to Jedikiah. She saw the envelope stuffed with cash that Jedikiah passed to the bum. Talk about child slavery. If you had a suit and a company car you could do anything in America. Buy a child? Sure! Call it a private school, and the kid was yours. Where were the authorities that were supposed to be checking on these children? A word in the right ear, and heads turned the other way. The watchdogs were overworked and understaffed, and besides what harm could possibly come to John from such a highly placed organization? She heard Jedikiah talking to him, reassuring him. She felt John's desire to trust warring with his all too harsh knowledge of the world. _Run from him, John! Run!_

Abruptly she was seeing and feeling things as John had. To her horror, she was John.

She felt the agony of the neural stripping. The cold so unbelievingly cold it burned, and then the cold fire was blasted away by a blazing hot, shriveling, flesh melting heat that left you screaming until your throat was raw.

She pressed her hands to her head squeezing as hard as she could. _I will not see this. I will not feel this. I will lock this away. Why did I ask for this?_

She succeeded in stopping that memory only to shift into another.

The hot, gut wrenching sobs as the full realization of what she had done hit her. The soul searing pain of knowing you had destroyed something as precious as life. She had killed.

_This is not my life. These are not my memories._

She wrenches her mind away only to fall into a dizzying kaleidoscope of his feelings and images.

She is back in the chair, strapped in for the neural stripping. She assures Jedikiah she is doing this for him. Doing it to make him proud. Hoping he will tell her he cares. But the words do not come. The thoughts can't be read. She takes comfort in the fact that he will not leave her. He must care. He must.

The bruises, from trying to defend yourself from kids years older and pounds heavier, hurt. Even though his head was carefully cushioned to prevent a concussion, a helmet didn't stop an arm from breaking. "I'm disappointed that you let that happen." Jedikiah reprimanded her. "Use your anger, John. Use it as a weapon to defend yourself." So, besides the pain, there was the humiliation of knowing that you had let your mentor, your idol, down.

Walking down the street with Jedikiah, spotting a father ruffling his son's hair. Listening to the father's thoughts; pride, fierce love, a desire to protect. Looking up at the man at your side. Unable to read him. Hoping desperately he cared, felt even a little bit of what that father felt for his son.

She jumped up, unable to sit still, agitated by the visions in her head. She paced back and forth stumbling in the ghostly red light, stubbing her toe. Hopping up and down, squeezing it against the pain.

Part of her wanted to take John and shake him by the shoulders and scream at him. "How could you be so naïve? How could you not see that that man was manipulating you? That bastard took advantage of you? How could you still care?"

Part of her wanted to gather him in her arms like he was still the young John and comfort him. Promise him she would never let anyone hurt him again. That she would stand between him and pain. That someone did love him.

She held a sob back with her fist crammed into her mouth. He had told her some of it. That it was bad. But he had told her in words. Words could not match the memories. Words were so inadequate to tell her what he had endured.

She lost control again and plummeted back into the nightmare. She was young John just inducted into Ultra. Scared and uncomfortable; wanting only to go home to something that was familiar. She felt the kicks to her ribs, knowing that the drunken bum would probably break a bone, and there was no escape. Saw the look of surprise on the man's face; watched the red splotch spread out from his heart. Watched his attacker fall to his knees and then backwards. Looked up in horror and gratitude as Jedikiah saved her life for the first time. Her savior. Her protector.

Her vantage point switched, and she was in the backseat of a limo with the window rolled down. She tried to shout–– to warn her friend, the old man who was so nice to her. This was her fault; this was her fault. A hand covered her mouth and stifled her screams as she watched the bullets hit him in slow motion. Saw the pain on the old man's face as he crumbled to the ground. The anger as she blamed Jedikiah followed by gratitude as Jedikiah explained that it could have been her. That Jedikiah had saved her from this fate. Being held in the man's arms as he offered her the only refuge in a world gone crazy. Feeling his pain that he had caused her pain. Jedikiah cared for her; and at the same time she hated him for what he had done, she began to love him.

She sat in hiding; miserable, tear stains on her face. A man walked towards her, the sun shining in the window behind him blinding her, and she was unable to make out his face at first. He introduced himself as Roger, and he pledged to be her friend. They sealed it with a handshake, and the pain around her heart eased.

The scene shifted dizzyingly, and she shot the man who had been so kind to her. She felt soul searing agony and shame as she looked down at the man she cared for so deeply, and promised to protect his son. A promise she now knew she would carry out even if it meant her life. She hated the man who forced her to do this to prove her loyalty. How could he betray her this way? She hated herself for what she had done. Done to please a man she loved like a father.

She digs her nails into the palms of her hands, using the pain to pull her out of the memories. She willed her mind to behave, to give her control again. _I do not want these memories!_

She takes deep breaths, forcing the air in and out of her lungs, trying to find some anchor to the real world, anything to get her out of the insanity that is John's life.

She forces herself to connect to her surroundings, concentrating on the sounds in the underground tunnel. The steady drip drip is water leaking through rusty pipes. Tremors beneath her feet are from a train in an adjoining tunnel. The dampness is palpable in the air. She detects rust and mold and a rancid smell from something that died down here and hasn't been completely devoured by the scavengers.

She breathes in deeply through her nose making an audible sound and talks to herself. _Find a happy memory._ A tiny lift of her lip, the closest she can come to a smile breaks the frozen mask that is her face. _His first love!_

She searches cautiously through his memories unwilling to lose control again and finds it. She refuses to be pulled in, maintaining her status as a bystander.

He's pushed into a corner by one of his teammates. He's fourteen? She's sixteen. He's the same height as her now, but the girl is rough, demanding, insistent, throwing him off balance. He's not quite sure what's happening here, but he knows she wants something. Her mouth is groping at him, her tongue forcing itself between his lips. Her hand is touching him, and he's excited and scared at the same time. Suddenly it dawns on him what's happening. He's heard the older boys talk, picked up on their thoughts. He'll be able to talk with them, be one of them, exchange stories, but at the same time what if he's not good enough?

He tries to imitate what he sees in the movies and on TV only he miscalculates and bumps her nose hard with his. It hurt, and he withdraws a tiny bit. She's impatient. "Don't you know what you're doing?"

He's humiliated and gets defensive. "You started it. You should know what to do."

He pushes away from her, and she calls to him. "Please."

The insecurity in her voice reaches and stops him. He turns back, head hanging, admitting, "I've never done this."

She smiles and reaches for his hand. "I haven't either, but I know what I want to do."

"Why me?" He's confused. No one goes out of their way to hang with him. He's tolerated, but that's pretty much it.

"Because I think you're good looking." She seems shocked that he would ask.

He's startled, never thinking about his looks.

"And I sense how you don't like this place either," she adds softly.

"That's not true. I'm going to be a great agent." He looks around to see if anyone might hear them. He's ready to run, uneasy over the heresy that she had just openly said. Forbidden words that could get them into trouble.

"John, please!" She opens her mind to him revealing her innermost thoughts. _"I'm not going to make it. I'm last in our class, and I don't want to do this. I don't want to hunt people like me."_

"_Don't,"_ he insists.

Suddenly a dam breaks in her mind, and her thoughts spill out in a flood. _"I'm sixteen, and I'm never going to see my family again. I'm never gonna hang at a mall again. No tattoos. No first dates. I'm never going to go to a prom. I'm not going to be a writer like I wanted. Never going to college. Never going to maybe someday have a family. I'm going to die, John, and there's so much that I haven't done; will never get to do. So I want to have someone love me. Let me at least have that. You don't have to really love me. Just pretend for me. Please. Please. Please."_

Her eyes are filled with tears now, and they roll down her cheeks. He steps close and wipes them away with a gentle finger, desperately wanting to comfort her. He tilts his head and kisses her, and this time they get the nose thing right.

And they learn together. The first time he enters her it's messy and painful for her, and he was scared by the blood, and she had to assure him it was okay. Normal in fact. Once she convinced him that she was okay they spent all their spare time together. Experimenting, learning what pleased the other and for an all too short time they're happy. It's so good not to be alone. But John is uneasy and makes her keep her distance when Jedikiah is around. He's not quite sure why, but he'd rather be safe.

But the day comes when Jedikiah announces in front of the whole team that she wasn't making it. She wouldn't make it. Only the best would continue, and she was cut.

They dragged her off screaming and pleading. "Please just let me live. You can strip me of my powers. Just let me live."

He stood in line with the rest of the team each harshly indrawn breath bordering on a sob. He felt the tears well up in his eyes, and he furiously blinks them back. His body trembled, on the verge of stepping forward, when steel fingers dug into the flesh around his shoulder pressing the nerves in a painful grip. He gritted his teeth and stood his ground, welcoming the intense pain that blocked her fading screams.

Later Jedikiah confronted him. "Were those tears in your eyes?"

To his intense shame, he replied with the only acceptable answer. "It was from the pain, Sir. Your grip hurt."

"Good answer, John. Remember you're always being watched." He was pulled into a fatherly embrace, hand combing through his hair, comforted against his chest. He feels Jedikiah's very real concern for him. "Listen to me, and I'll keep you alive."

Cara pulled herself out of those memories, the bile again rising in her throat. Scalding hot tears run down her cheeks, and she moans for the loss of that young girl who just wanted to live, and the pain and shame John felt.

_Was there nothing good in his mind?_ _This was his introduction to love? Did anyone he ever cared for besides Jedikiah survive? So much pain! How did one endure so much and still be able to risk loving someone?_ _How did you know what love is when the yardstick for a father was Jedikiah?_

And then she found her answer in his memories. It was her. She was his anchor. Her strength allowed him to love her without fear. She was his family.

She grabbed those memories, holding on to them, using them to keep the horrors he had endured at bay. She calmed and warmed herself in the images of his love for her. She felt him calling.

"_Are you there?"_

"_I'm here,"_ she answered.

"_Is everything okay?"_ was what he sent, but he meant something different. _Did_ _I drive you away? Are you disgusted with me?_

"_Everything is okay," _is what she sent, but it wasn't how she felt. _I wished I never asked._

~ FIN ~


End file.
